Progressives have long history with eugenics
Mr. Rock it is good to see you pop back up, and thanks for the opportunity to expand on the topic.
Eugenics and the progessive movement have a long history together.
The progressives focus on common good and betterment of humanity while devaluing the individual. (Definitions of betterment vary.) The downside is the individual becomes expendable. Even Wikipedia recognizes “…progressivism was tied to eugenics and the temperance movement, both of which were promoted in the name of public health and as initiatives toward that goal.”
Eugenics was thought of as cutting edge science. Progressives sought to improve the human condition by government control of genetics by sterilizing those it deemed inferior. Those that questioned the “settled science” were ostracized. (Sound familiar?)
It was actually a rebellion against Darwinism as “survival of the fittest” was not producing the desired results and the state must intervene to select the “fittest”. There is a strong belief the state should be the one making decisions because you as individuals are too incompetent to do so on our own. The party elite are apparently better equipped to make such personal decisions for others. (sarcasm)
Tommy Douglas’s, (father of socialized medicine in Canada) university thesis, was titled “The Problems of the Subnormal Family.” He argued that the “subnormal” Canadian be segregated or sterilized so they would be less of a public burden. He also argued that before marriage the couple had to prove they were mentality and morally fit. You can see the ideas echoed in CCF (predecessor to NDP) documentation. The public saw the horrors of where eugenics led, the Nazi regime, and it became an unpopular opinion to hold. Thankfully Douglas recanted rather then face public backlash.
This disgust for a group wrapped up in the language of victimhood is all too common to the progressives. The current issue of First Nations women coerced into being sterilized during labour is the legacy of the progressives. The 60s scoop and residential schools are in line with the progressives’ nanny state ideology of government intervention.
The state having power over an individual’s body is only possible if the state owns its citizens. Slavery. Life and death then falls to a small group of elites who are there because of their loyalty to party and leader, not their compassion for others.
Eugenics may have been well intentioned but as history shows, it led to some of the darkest parts of the 20th century. (Road to hell paved with good intentions.)
S. Innis
Duncan
